all i ever write about is skool these days. what’s wrong with me. life is a lot more than skool. but i don’t really notice it all that much.

i was totally failing my Power class, with atrocious quiz grades left and right. Today we got our midterms back, and i got the highest grade, a 96. woo hoo! This places my average up to an 85, a B.

I spent a good bit of time studying for this midterm at Grandmere’s house a week or two ago, and even after i took the exam, i was not very confident in my performance. Even after the fact, i really shouldn’t have gotten full credit on some parts, but good thing the TA graded it instead of the prof.

yay for school not kicking my butt so much.

Oh yeah and today it was cold ALL day long, instead of just the morning. End of October, beginning of the 60’s temperatures for S. Louisiana.

i’ve made more progress on a song i’m writing… i hope it all works out the way i want it to, because this song is my best yet (except for hurricane season 2).

the spirit of matt smith haunts me… i am avoiding my school work at every momentary distraction. last night i was go-get-em and now i am completely incapable of focus. Midterms… blech.

its past midnight and i’m ready to go to bed but i have not begun my homework. On the flip side, i overheard this guy dressed in a suit today talking about his job prospects with somebody over the phone. He was obviously an engineering major, and he was mentioning how he has several options and offers, in positions all around the world. I started to think, well, i hope he’s not tied down, or he’d have to refuse all of these exotic jobs. All of a sudden, the whole “engineer” thing just clicked for me… I realized that this guy is not even out of college and big, big companies are competing for him across the globe. My sister, for example, lived practically off of savings for the past year since she graduated with a degree in French, and has since just recently started at “temp” position. Most liberal arts majors either have grad school plans, doctoral ambitions, or just an optimistic hope for the best. If i were to merely graduate in engineering, however, i’d practically be set for the rest of my life.

as wonderful as this all sounds, tonight, i just want to go to bed.

merely walking around campus is blissful, these days… beautiful, gorgeous weather. And, to make things several orders of magnitude better, this week was Music Mayhem week, which means EVERY DAY there is a new band in front of the Union playin and jammin for nearly 2 hours during lunch. Some are better than others, but dang… this is one big-school advantage that kicks so much butt. People just chillin outside in the mild fall temperatures, laying back, open air concert.

And now, the food news.
i like fruit juice and i wish i had an endless supply of every kind of fruity juice liquids.
do you like Pan Pizza? i do. Well Papa John’s just came out with a killer Pan Pizza. I recommend getting extra cheese on it, as well as everything else you desire. friggin good.
Julie sometimes gets these microwavable chocolate fudge cakes, and they are also deadly wonderful.
all you anthropological folks out there, they discovered a 4000 year old pot of NOODLES beneath some sediment in china’s yellow river. Talk about leftovers… also, everytime i read the word Noodle in this article i have to suppress laughter.

party at my place tomorrow night around 8.

procrastination is hitting pretty hard tonight. for once, all i have to do is this one lab report, but i am actually looking for other things to do besides my homework.

hey but me and jules and lauren went to a free music school Cello conert on campus tonight! that reminded me of all the Mercer concerts i went to. it was so good. i cant wait for the jazz ensemble that plays in a few weeks…

i loved how the cellist did all the crazy-performer head twitches when there was a fast part. she had loose curly hair so it would flop around wildly.

how appropriate… fall break was the first cool weather we’ve had in like 5 months. My olfactory memory detects the slightest change in the fall foliage, and triggers all of my fall memories and associated feelings. Just breathing in this weather takes me to another time. Unlike most other aspects of my life, which seem to be lagging all over the place in wild disarray, my seasonal nostalgia is in full force.

To cap off the perfect fall weather, and to complete the seasonal cliché, Grandmere made some Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. Talk about some soul food. Being home for that was worth a lot to me.

Bennett Broussard turns 20 today finally. He had a little party this weekend, during which i got to spend time with Jon, Katie, Paul, Dan, Des, and Bennett, a little mini STM reunion. Those little reunions happen a lot more often these days, now that i actually go to a LA school. Bennett’s dad is one cool home boy.

I made an A on my Fields test, which is spectacular. Yay for good professors. I am more than thrilled, because now i have something to stand on. I haven’t gotten my other test grades back yet.

Finally jammed with Jon. that was a long time coming. we had a good old time. I made some progress on a song i’m writing, and though i believe it’s coming along beautifully, i still have a long way to go since the lyrics are not fleshed out. Jon can play some drums, though… once again we decided that a third person would be much much better for the jamz. I really love my new Blues Jr. amplifier. Its going to be featured in some future songs, for sure. And plus!!! Uncle Mike once acquired a banjo, so he could learn, but he never could. So i inherited it! Banjo has such a unique tone that can evoke some incredible musical ideas. As for the instrument itself, it’s age has not done anything good for the sound: the strings are probably 10-15 years old, the neck is sensitive to pressure, which affects the tuning, and the high-string tuner is a little loose. but by golly, i’ll fix her up.

Dad said something strange to me this weekend. i don’t know how it came about, but he ended up saying “You’d finish your degree, right? you wouldn’t quit school to pursue music?” Of course, i am not a complete loser, i’ve got this perfect opportunity for a prime college degree and i’m going to finish. But that got me thinking. I had always imagined that in my future i’d have the funds and the time and the place to develop my music hobby/passion. What if that never comes?? what if i’m trapped with trying to find the “right” job or the “right” place to live, or what if my family demands force me to abandon music? It would not be the end of the world, and i’m in no mood for melodrama. But i truly think that if that ever came to be, i would be betraying myself somehow.

Speaking of betrayal. Everything seems to be going as normal, but on the inside, i feel like i have been put together wrong. I have lost faith in my ability to make decisions that will be good for those i care about. between last fall and this one, my heart has been torn apart, stitched together, soaked in several forms of love, wrung out, and now i just feel too weak to stick to something. I know much more than i used to. About relationships, about love, about my heart, about other people. but now more than ever, i often only want to just give myself a rest. i can’t justify that much more than my own emotional slump. That’s all it amounts to.

i like my place. despite the few disappointments i’ve discovered since moving in (sometimes slow internet, dog barking next door, etc), i am very comfortable here. when i’m here, i can procrastinate anything. school work may be beckoning with an agonizing scream for attention, but i can just turn it down and turn my music up.

that dosen’t mean i am not busy. i am leading myself to believe that once thursday ends, i’ll be able to breathe a little. i can’t help feeling that with the coming of the supposed “fall break” i will be inundated with waves of freedom and feelings of glee. This is just not true.

I know something that would really help me release. If i could just jam out. I need a serious jam session. Holding nothing back. No volume / time limits. I need a hot friday night, drums/bass/guitar/banjo/fiddle/harmonica/keys, some friends, and any additional participant(s) who want to lose themselves in the jam.

my tests went.. um… okay.

i got my lectric bill today.

and i’m now officially failing my Power class.

This message is approved by the Department of Redundancy Department.

studying for my tests this week, one in almost every class. i’m a little nervous, my first LSU exams. i feel like the material is not that difficult, but it depends on how much “theory” the prof wants to test us on, vs. application. as far as the clumping of the exams in the same week, everyone i talk to is beset with a similar situation, because midterms are only two weeks away.

midterms are two weeks away. whoa. Midterms? i feel like i’ve barely settled in. tis the way it goes in college.

so hurricanes have effed up everything around these parts, including fall break next week. i was going to try to make it to georgia. sigh. i guess i’ll just have to take a couple of hours and just call everybody i know over there, see how they’re doing.

i made a friend in Electrical Engineering over here. Her name is Uzma and she and i have 4 classes together. Most of the time we’re scrambling to check homework right before class and trying to figure out what exactly is going on in our classes.

It seems like money goes quicker over here than it ever did in Georgia. Most likely, this is due to food expenses. I cut costs everywhere, i rarely go out and when i do i skimp on the extras. My job trickles in a very unsteady $160 a month. Sometimes i work almost twice as many hours as i am scheduled, because i know how every hour will count.

Oh yeah, and here’s something i’m really worried about. I haven’t gotten my electricity bill yet. From August. I was supposed to get it right when Katrina brought Entergy to its knees. So i waited. but Dude. It’s October. This is a little unnerving. I still have power, but are they racking up delinquincy charges against me and ruining my credit? Sounds like i need to make a phone call.

anyways, gotta get back to work.